WoWInterface UI Manager - Windows

Please Note: This updater is being discontinued. We're allowing you to continue downloading this current version until the new one is ready, but please be aware that it may not work as well as could be hoped for.

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The WoWInterface UI Manager is a project that has been going on for nearly a year. With all the recent security problems at various addon sites, as well as the explicit targetting of executable updaters, as well as a few other issues we have delayed the production of this utility... until now.

After nearly six months of rigorous testing and in-house use, we are finally convinced of the security of the tool to present it to the public.

The WoWInterface UI Manager is a tool designed to help you keep track of installed addons, and assist in updating them quickly and easily. The UI Manager uses an internal API of WoWInterface so you can be sure it will continue to work even when site layout changes or if you choose a new skin.

Major Features

One-click Check allows the UI Manager to run through all of your addons quickly without any intervention. Any addons that do need to be updated will wait for your approval before continuing.

Multithreaded design allows for maximum use of your internet connection, processing complex compression for backup files while downloading other files at the same time.

Connection to the WoWInterface user database to retrieve your favorites list. This allows:

Quicker matching of already-installed addons to file IDs

Automatic install of missing favorites (after confirmation)

Automatic backups before every install

Before each install, the manager will create a restoration point which can later be used to revert to. It will include all configuration and saved information for the addon, as well as the Lua and XML scripts that ran it, so you can be sure you'll return to where you were.

Manual backups can be made (with or without Saved Variable data) of your entire Interface folder for easy restoration to a known-safe point.

Backups are compressed to help minimize space taken on the hard drive

An easy-to-use restoration manager can help you restore a backup, or restoration can be done easily without the manager by simply using the ZIP file found in the newly created "backups" folder.

All updates are compared against MD5 hashes before being installed to ensure security.

Download Choices
This is a portable program. This version is for Windows and includes only a Windows MSI Setup program. For a generic version (for Linux/Macintosh users), see this page.

Command line options:
The JAR (Java Executable Archive) file accepts command line arguments to assist with problem cases. If you are having trouble with the program, try running the following line at a command prompt before submitting any kind of bug information:

Code:

java -jar wowiupdater.jar --verbose

This will produce a file "verbose.log" instead of the default "error.log" in the program's directory to assist with debugging.

Other Important Stuff
Please keep in mind the following:

This program is released under the GNU General Public License v2. Your redistribution, modification, etc., is subject to these terms. For details, please see the file "COPYING" located inside the (a) ZIP file for the ZIP package, or (b) Installation directory for the Windows setup package.

This program is the work of one author, and is not small by any means. I'm sure there are bugs, and unfortunately I cannot catch them all. This is a BETA RELEASE of the application and you should be aware that things may go wrong (though I have taken every precaution I can that if something DOES go wrong, you can hopefully recover from it -- but I cannot guarantee that). See the following point:

As required by the GPL, it is important that I point out the following:

Code:

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Please feel free to list any problems here. I will do my best to update frequently and respond accordingly.

Regards,
-- Shirik

Version 0: Public BETA

0.2.6 (r1) - Initial Public Release

0.2.7 (not tagged) - Maintenance Release
- Fixed "Internal Error" occurring when a character that has never logged in has a SavedVariables folder on the computer
- Fixed "Internal Error" occurring when an addon has files placed at the root folder (due to the updater attempting to traverse backwards past root)
- Fixed "Unspecified I/O Error" occurring when explicit files are found outside of a folder (due to the updater attempting to place a dependency identifier in the file as if it were a folder)
- Fixed UTF-8 characters in addon metadata corrupting the XML data (server-side change only)
- Fixed non-alphanumeric characters in addon metadata corrupting the XML data (server-side change only)
- Resolved bug ID 4250
- Special thanks to:
+ Tem for countless hours being a guinea pig
+ ScythXIII, Seerah, Portalius, and mrruben5 for bug reports resulting in the above fixes

0.2.8 (not tagged) - Maintenance Release
- Fixed an issue where attempting to install a new addon to a corrupt, unexpected, or already-installed folder may result in an "Unspecified I/O error"
- Special thanks to Portalius for the bug report

0.2.9 (r8) - Correction Release (Windows only)
- Updated the Swing library to 1.0.3
- Fixed the setup package so that it references the correct library
- Special thanks to Dolby for pointing out the problem in the setup package

0.2.10 (r15) - Maintenance Release
- Fixed the setup package so that the shortcut placed on the desktop now has the correct icon (Windows only)
- Fixed an issue where users with more accounts than servers played would not be able to update any addons, receiving the error "Internal Error." (Resolves bug report #4259)
- Fixed an issue where not all accounts' SavedVariables files were being backed up in cases where the user had more servers than accounts played.
- Fixed an issue where files resident in the SavedVariables folder would be incorrectly detected as an account name, resulting in an "Internal Error" while backing up prior to updating an addon.
- Adjusted the AddOns folder constant to use correct capitalization for UNIX-based systems
- Special thanks to:
+ ScythXIII for the bug report, log files, and extreme patience while the bug was resolved
+ Thunder_Child for the bug report and log files and WTF data which lead to the isolation of the issue
+ Dolby for reporting the desktop icon issue

When the WoWI updater downloads the mod, "MyModName.zip" is physically located in "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns" but when the WoWI Updater unpacks the contents of ZIP file, they are located in the in "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface" directory, the "MyModName" sub-directory is never created anywhere. That is to say that "MyModName.lua" is in the \Interface directory, there is no MyModName directory created anywhere and the MyLibs and MyArt subdirectories in the ZIP file are created as sub-directories of the Interface directory.

Something is very messed up. The thing that disturbs me most is that the "MyModName" root directory in my ZIP file is entirely ignored and the files are unzipped in a place you would not otherwise expect.

Does WoWI intentionally expect packages to include the Interface\AddOns path in the ZIP package? That would require me to maintain two separate builds of my mod with two separate sets of installation instructions. One for WoWI and another for every other mod site.

I have a question though: whenever I load up the updater, it scans for all my addons and pops up the "resolve" boxes for all the ones that I haven't entered the UID for. But when I click to "remove from queue," they still reappear the next time I open the program. Is there any way to have the program not scan for installed addons and instead only have it update from the favorites list? It used to do this for me, but since I started using MazzleUI again, it shows all the addons and it's a pain (I imagine if it queries the server for all of them then it's a drain on the site's resources as well).

Why does the mod retain the zip files after uncompressing and installing the mods? It doesn't seem necessary and makes using this program to make mod packages for upload here frustrating as I must go through and remove all the left over zip files every update.

When reverting to a back-up, have an option to skip the "backing up before reversion" phase. With some of the larger UIs it can take on an extra 10+ mins to the operation.

The "Restore Saved Variables With Addon" option should probably be on by default rather than off as it is common practice to restore a UI's variables.

Method of locating mods to update.

I think an option for some sort of local addon scan to match currently installed mods with ones available for download here would be preferable. I would leave the login and "favorites sync" as an optional alternative. I personally don't mind creating an account, or configuring them manually, others however may feel it's not worth the effort, or have difficulties doing so.

I realize I haven't posted a comment in a while so I figured I should let you know what's going on.

Due to the varying feature requests, etc., this program is undergoing a thorough rework to allow for many new features and tools. That's why you haven't seen an update for a while. I'll keep you posted on how this goes.

In the meantime, if any major issues arise, please feel free to find me on IRC at irc.freenode.net on channel #wowuidev -- it's the fastest way to find me.

Hi, would love to try out your addon manager but it asks me for a username/pw that i have no idea what they are. I've read through all your information and other than the legalise on the general public sofftware license i see nothing to help me out. Maybe i missed something obvious?

Though I have a lot of mods that are on WoWInterface, the UI Manager will not automatically work with them. Even if you manually add them through the Manager ("Register Add-ons..." or "Install New"), I get "Error - Internal Error" response. This holds even if an updated version of the mod is available.
I also get the same error when trying to update "My Favorites" through the Manager.

I found if you add a modified .WID file (replacing the information added by the Manager (from a "Install New" mod) with the information needed for the mod you want updated) in the mods file folder, the Manager will check for updates properly without giving an error response. Not sure if it is actually checking for an update or the information in the .WID file.

The question is can the UI Manager be made to add this file automatically for mods available on WoWInterface, or at least when using the "Register Add-ons..." function?
As of right now the .WID file is only added if you use the Manager to add a mod ("Install New") that you do not already have.

You can change the directory that the UI Updater looks at in the config.wic file. I had the same issue until I modified it to the correct directory.

Originally posted by Luciant i am also getting an internal error and the program just hangs.. I believe it is because i have WoW installed into a different directory than the default. This can and should be easily fixed by you guys soon!

i am also getting an internal error and the program just hangs.. I believe it is because i have WoW installed into a different directory than the default. This can and should be easily fixed by you guys soon!